Keeping America Beautiful with more ashtrays: The tobacco industry and the litter issue

Background: Tobacco production and use pose numerous environmental problems beyond their direct impact on human life, including pesticide use, deforestation, and waste disposal. Toxic, non-biodegradable cigarette filters are the single item most frequently found during beach clean-ups, providing a potential point of attack for tobacco control advocates. Methods: We searched the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library (http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/index.html) for documents relating to the tobacco industry's management of the cigarette litter issue, and Lexis/Nexis and Newsbank for news coverage of cigarette litter. Results: The tobacco industry was concerned that cigarette litter would inspire a coalition between tobacco control advocates and environmentalists. To mitigate the issue, tobacco companies entered into partnerships with Keep America Beautiful (KAB), an organization founded by the packaging industry to pre-empt regulation. Through KAB, the industry distributed pocket ashtrays and installed permanent ashtrays in several American cities. Media coverage suggests that the KAB partnership reduced criticism of the tobacco industry and focused attention on the industry's preferred solutions to the problem. Discussion: Tobacco control advocates have not focused on cigarette-related environmental problems. These could be a point of coalition with environmental groups; however, advocates should be careful about alliances. Some environmental groups, such as KAB, have partnered with the industry. Advocates should take a broad view of the environmental impact of cigarettes, and join with environmental groups that see public health as part of their mission.